Sweet Sixteen and Never Been Kissed
by katzklaw
Summary: Jazz writes in her diary about her first love.
1. prologue

Jazz Fenton lies sprawled belly-down across her bed, staring out her window at the stars. A diary lies open in front of her, but she's not writing in it anymore, she's lost deep in thought, deep in memories. Her eyes momentarily drift back to her page, "What do you remember about the first boy you ever kissed?" she reads. She looks back to the starry sky outside her window and she sighs deeply, "Everything."

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Students milled restlessly in long lunch-lines at just another typical day at Casper High. Tables filled up with the various groups and cliques. Spike settled into his normal spot and nodded his "hellos" to the other punks and goths sharing the table. Jazz, fourteen year old Jazz, sat chatting with a few of her friends at a table across the room. Suddenly all eyes focused on a commotion as the latest star football player fresh from JV decided to test out his new Varsity "authority". Dash, followed closely by his pack of raucous cronies, made a beeline for the Spike's table. "Hey! Lookie what we got here, guys!", he shouted, pointing right at Spike. Spike didn't even turn around, "Piss off, jock." he muttered, just barely audibly. Totally incensed at the utter dismissal, Dash grabbed Spike's shoulder and pulled him out of his seat, "That's it, you freak! I'm gonna pound you!" The other jocks gathered in a tight ring around them, like sharks smelling blood on the water. Jazz jumped up from her table, not exactly sure of what she would do, but certain that someone should do something.

"Leave him alone, Dash-ass".

Shocked silence descended on the lunchroom. Dash froze, arm still cocked to deliver a punch, and took a long moment to process the insult. When it finally sunk in, he dropped Spike and swiveled to face the new arrival. "What did you call me?" Jazz, along with the rest of the room, turned to the source of the new voice: the school "bad boy". His freshman year he set a record for "most times sent to the principal's office", and it seemed he was well on his way to meeting or breaking that record in his sophomore year; rumor around the school had it he already owned a motorcycle, even though at 15 he still couldn't legally ride it for another year. "Drake," Dash growled. "It figures you'd stick up for this looser!" Drake continued to lean against the table, cold contempt plain all over his face and posture. He certainly looked the "bad boy" part with his black leather jacket, ratty old jeans, thick-soled biker's boots, and spiky iron-colored hair, not quite black, not quite gray. Drake raised one eyebrow and repeated himself, "Leave him alone." Dash's answer was simple enough: he balled up his fists and charged at Drake with a snarl.

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"And that was the first time I saw Drake." Jazz finished her entry. She gazed pensively at the end of her pencil for a few moments, then added "Dash spent the night in the hospital, and Drake got a week suspension. From that day on there was an uneasy truce of sorts between the jocks and the punks. The goths enjoyed the protection of the truce as well, but I really think that was just because the jocks were too stupid to tell the difference."


	2. Chapter 1

Danny Fenton walked down the hallway to his room after a long day at school. He was tired, he had a lot of homework, all he wanted to do was retreat to the quiet of his room and relax. That whole idea went right out the window when he opened the door and saw Danni lying across his bed buried in reading his comic books. He scowled in irritation, "What are you doing here?" He wasn't really that upset, they had parted on good terms, but right now she was aggravation he didn't want. She looked up at the sound of his voice and leapt to her feet. "Danny! I need your help! Vlad has been trying to find me! He's like totally loco crazy!" Danny snorted and rolled his eyes, "So what else is new?" As Danni opened her mouth to answer, a puff of vapor escaped her mouth, mirrored by an identical one from Danny. Before either of them had a chance to react, the window exploded inward, showering the room with shards. Skulker burst in through the now "open" window and flung a small translucent cube at Danni. It expanded as it hurtled toward her, and the second it touched her, she was sucked inside, shrieking as she went. Skulker grabbed the now occupied cube, still emitting muffled wails, and turned to leave. Danny jumped up from where he'd been thrown when Skulker made his violent entrance, "Hey! Let her go! Going ghost!" Blue-white rings formed and swept up and down his body, leaving behind Danny's ghostly form, ready to fight. Skulker smiled sardonically and said, almost tauntingly, "Another time, Ghost Child!" as he extended his wings with a metallic clank. He rocketed away into the afternoon sky, Danny following hot on his trail. 

Skulker wove an evasive pattern through the sky as he flew, artfully avoiding Danny's persistent attack. It irked him to be making all speed away from his favorite prey, and it finally got the better of him: Skulker stopped mid-air and whipped around to face his pursuer, "You are not on my list today, Ghost Child." "Oh yeah? Well make room!" Danny shouted back, firing off another blast. Skulker narrowly avoided being hit, and raised his arm to return fire. An odd device popped out of one of the many weapons ports on Skulker's arm and released a narrow cone of bright yellow which caught Danny full in the chest. He screamed and writhed a few moments, in obvious pain, before reverting to normal and falling to the ground. Skulker floated over as Danny recovered his bearings and pulled himself to his hands and knees. "Like it, Whelp?" Skulker taunted, "its a new upgrade. It just shorted out your powers. I was going to use it to capture the little clone, but it's so much more satisfying to use it on you!" Danny staggered to his feet, still a big disoriented, and strained to transform back to ghost form; fear and confusion flashed across his face when he was unable to. Skulker chuckled scornfully at Danny's expression as he popped a double-edged blade out of his arm. "Still want me to 'make room', Whelp?"

"I'm betting the answer is gonna be 'no'." came an unfamiliar voice. Skulker started to spin to face the source of the voice, but turned around right into a devastating haymaker and went flying not under his own power. Danny blinked a few times in confusion at the new arrival, it was a ghost, but no ghost he knew: he was huge, and powerfully muscled, which showed plainly through the ripped off arms of a black leather jacket with spike-decorated shoulders. A row of black spikes ran across his gray-skinned head like a mohawk and his red eyes glowed balefully down at Danny. Danny stared uncertainly back, "Wh..who are you?" he stammered out. "You know you're wasting a really good head start asking stupid questions," the strange ghost growled contemptuously. Before Danny could respond to that, Skulker dragged himself back to his feet muttering "You will regret that!" The strange ghost turned away from Danny to face the advancing Skulker. A large, rather solid-looking crescent wrench materialized in his waiting hands, and he began to thump it into one palm, like an improvised club. As Skulker continued to come closer, he glanced sideways at Danny and muttered sarcastically "You should run now, Inviso-bill" Danny started to sputter indignantly about the name, but then realized that the strange ghost was, indeed, correct: he was powerless and defenseless. Danny Fenton turned and ran for all he was worth back to the safety of home, leaving Skulker and the strange ghost to settle their dispute.


	3. Chapter 2

"Well, Drake was certainly notorious, but surprisingly enough I barely saw more than a passing glimpse of him around the school for the whole next 2 years." Jazz was still writing in her diary. This was defiantly going to be one of the longer entries, but then again, she had a lot to write about this evening. "The next time I really saw him I'd been invited to 'hang out' with Spike and his friends. As embarrassing as it was to have my parents attack me like they did that one time, it did have the advantage of breaking through to Spike a bit so he trusted me more. Unfortunately he invited me on the same night as Dash's big party, not that I wanted to go anyway. I really didn't want to leave Danny high and dry like that, but I also really had no interest in seeing Dash in his 'righteous setting'." Jazz paused in her writing and rolled her eyes. Momentarily at a loss for what to write, Jazz resumed staring out the window, lost in her memories again. 

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Jazz and Spike sat together off to one side of the gathering, quietly chatting. She stuck out like a sore thumb amidst all the punks, but Spike vouched for her, so everyone mostly left her alone. They were so busy talking, they didn't notice a new arrival to the 'party' until he was standing over them. "Who's this little glowing ray of sunshine?" a sarcastic voice interrupted them. Jazz looked up, startled, directly into Drake's eyes. He'd gained several inches over the past 2 years, both in height and width, and none of it fat, but what really caught Jazz's attention were Drake's eyes: they were red...and glaring...at her. She realized she was staring and averted her gaze with a blush. Spike held up one hand and said "It's cool, Drake, she's with me." "Yeah, but that still doesn't answer who she is," Drake responded as he turned toward his friend. Spike nodded "Jazz. She's Fenton's daughter." Jack and Maddie Fenton were becoming very well known in the school of late. An incredulous grin spread across Drake's face as he turned back to Jazz, "You're Fenton's kid?" he asked her in amusement. When she nodded shyly, he leaned down right into her face, "Your folks make me laugh." With that he turned and walked away with a chuckle. Several long moments later Jazz blinked, stopped staring after Drake's departure, and turned to Spike. "Um, you know him, so I'm assuming you know the answer, whats with his eyes?" The question appeared to catch Spike off guard for a moment, "Umm... Right, his eyes. Colored contacts. He doesn't like his natural eye color." Jazz looked back in the direction Drake had taken, "Right."

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"Drake was intriguing, but also a bit scary, but then again, I've always had a soft spot for the 'bad boys'. I guess thats why I fell so quickly for Johnny." Jazz ponders for a moment, then continues, "At least Drake didn't have a ghostly girlfriend trying to possess me. Despite the show he put on for the rest of the world, he can actually be a pretty nice guy sometimes."

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Danny had flown a lot farther while chasing Skulker than he realized, and without ghost powers, that equaled a very long trip home. He'd long since run out of energy to run, and since he still couldn't transform, he resorted to walking. He certainly couldn't call his parents for a lift, he had no explanation for being clear across town when he was supposed to be safe in his room doing homework. After a while he stopped flinching at the sound of every motor that passed him, after all, it was pretty obvious Skulker had been after Danni, not him, it was unlikely that Skulker would come back now.

As he trudged along dejectedly he became aware of a much louder motor approaching, sounding like a car with a broken muffler. The noise stopped right next to him, and a voice called out "Hey you!" Danny turned and saw Drake sitting on an old battered Indian motorcycle. He didn't know Drake, he'd never even met him, but he knew of Drake; heck, almost the whole school knew of Drake: he was that scary bad-$$ that no one was willing to talk to for fear of pissing him off. Every school has one. When Drake saw that he had Danny's attention, he continued, "You're Jazz's little kid brother, right?" Danny visibly bristled at the word 'kid', but thought better of making a big deal over it and replied warily "Why do you want to know?" "She's worried about ya." Drake shot back, "She's been calling her friends to keep an eye out for ya. Hop on," he smirked unhappily and patted the gas tank; there was certainly no room anywhere on the back for Danny to ride, "I'll take you home." One eyebrow shot up in disbelief, "You're one of my sister's friends?" Danny eyed Drake and his bike uneasily and continued, "I think I'll just keep walking. I'll be alright." Now it was Drake's turn to bristle, "C'mon man, yer really killing my chances here." Bad memories of Johnny 13 got the better of good judgment, and Danny glared right at back Drake, arms crossed, "Good!" he replied emphatically.

Drake glared at Danny, free hand balled into a tight fist. Danny was about to take an uneasy step backwards when Drake snorted disgustedly, "Fine. Whatever. Forget you." He waved his arm dismissively and turned back to his bike to ride off. As he tried to restart his bike, Spike rode up beside Drake on a bike of his own. Danny ogled the shiny chopper; apparently Spike's folks were just as loaded as Sam's were for him to have a bike that nice. "Yo Drake, what's up?" Spike asked, nodding his head toward Danny to indicate that he meant 'whats up with this guy'. Drake thought for a few seconds, then turned back to Danny, "Ya know what? Fine. Hate me. Like I care. But I ain't gonna let your sister suffer for your stupidity. Spike..." he turned back around to face his friend, "Drop Jazz a dime and let her know I found her little twerp brother." Drake went back to trying to get his bike started; it was, after all, a very old bike, and almost always took a few tries to get it running. "Sure thing, bro." Spike pulled out a cell phone and started punching numbers. Danny was grateful that he wouldn't have to walk anymore, but "I still don't trust you." Drake's bike roared to life and he looked up at the open road in front of him, "Works for me." he grumbled before peeling out, leaving a respectable patch of rubber on the pavement next to Spike.

Danny watched sourly as Drake rode off, then jumped startled when Spike snapped his cell phone shut. "I told Jazz where you were. She's comin' to get ya. Stay here." Spike started up his chopper and took off in the same direction Drake had taken. Danny sighed and looked around for a place to sit; nothing to do now but wait.


	4. Chapter 3

Jazz looked down from the window to her diary page, rereading the last few lines. "He didn't even give me any grief when I called him up in the middle of the night to help look for my brother." 

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"This night just keeps getting better and better." Danny muttered sourly to himself. Jazz shot him a dirty look, but kept driving. "Danny, I can't help you if you don't tell me what happened. Now I could have sworn I heard a girl scream when your room...blew up," Jazz commented, obviously hoping for an explanation. "Is that why you sent the creep squad after me?" Danny griped. Jazz raised an eyebrow, "'Creep squad'? Who's got the goth girlfriend?" Danny sat up and glared at his sister indignantly, "She's not my girlfriend!" Jazz rolled her eyes, "Right. So anyway, who was the girl?" Danny slouched back down into his seat, reluctant to answer. "Ermm...she's...my cousin," he finally said. Jazz shot Danny an incredulous look, "Danny, we don't have any cousins! Aunt Alishia never had any kids." Danny made a frustrated sound, somewhere between a sigh and a groan, before answering, "Look, it's really complicated, and I'm really tired, and I really don't wanna talk about it right now." Seeing that she wasn't going to get any answers, Jazz's frustration got the better of her, "Fine!" "Fine!" Danny shot back, just as they pulled into the driveway. Danny sulked quietly while waiting for Jazz to roll to a stop, then jumped out and slammed the car door behind him. Jazz followed suit, and they both stomped off to their respective rooms without looking at or saying another word to each other.

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Danny was in a tirade, all his frustrations from the previous night, that he didn't want to tell his sister, he dumped on Sam and Tucker. "...and then he calls me 'Inviso-Bill'." he finished, with more than a bit of agitation in his voice. Sam and Tucker traded a slightly confused glance, then Tucker ventured, "Seems like that mystery ghost is a little bit out-of-the-loop." "Right, so that means he can't be working for Vlad." Sam added. "Or anyone else that hates you." Tucker finished. Danny shot Tucker an unhappy glower. "Gee, thanks. That makes me feel so much better," he muttered sarcastically. All three of them sat quietly thinking for a minute before Sam finally decided to ask, "So, what are you going to do about Danni?" Danny groaned and dropped his head into his crossed arms on the table in front of him for a moment, before sitting back up and responding, "What can I do about her? I have no idea where Skulker took her." Tucker raised one finger in an 'I have an idea' manner, and said "She was one of Vlad's clones, right?"

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"You want how much?" Vlad Masters demanded angrily. Spike's pale, almost grayish, face stared back impassively from the computer screen. "You heard me," he said, totally deadpan, "No questions asked. You drop off the cash, I drop off the box." With that the camera angle shifted to show the box sitting on the table, then back to Spike's face. "You see I'm serious. What's your answer?" he continued. Vlad seethed in silence for a few moments, before he suddenly adopted a deadpan look of his own."It's not worth that much to me." he responded in a silky-smooth voice. "Keep the box for all I care." Spike raised one eyebrow, but otherwise betrayed no emotion whatsoever, "Keep it? This box is obviously quite valuable to you, you went to a lot of effort and expense to acquire it. It wasn't easy to convince your...associate to give me your contact information, but if you really don't want the box anymore, I was planning on opening it up and finding out what," Spike paused and lowered his head slightly, boring into Vlad's eyes with an 'I know more than you think I do' expression "...or who...was so important." Spike started to reach for the box, but Vlad stopped him, "No! Wait!" knowing his bluff was up, angry defeat filled his expression, "Fine! I'll pay what you want."


	5. Chapter 4

"Of course that only happened just recently, though" Jazz continued her entry. "What I really think is sweet is that he never laughed at me or anything when I totally embarrassed myself the first time Ember came around. All I really remember from that was waking up to the horrible sound of Tucker singing, and there I was in the middle of a crowd of what had to be every kid in town, in an outfit I normally wouldn't be caught dead in! Gah, That was so embarrassing! I don't even remember how I got there...but I do remember how I got home." 

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Confused teens filtered dazedly out of the amphitheater where Ember McClain's concert had come to an unexpected end. Most looked like they had no clue where they were, or how they got there. Drake shot Spike a concerned glance as they made their way out the exit nearest to where they'd parked their bikes, "You ok, man? You look a little out of it." Spike shook his head, "Yeah, I'm fine. What the heck were we doing in there listening to that, anyway?" "Phh... I dunno about you, but I was waiting for a riot to break out." Drake smiled coldly, but then his expression changed to one of interest and curiosity as he caught sight of something in the crowd. "Whoa," he said quietly, but not quietly enough to escape the notice of his friend. "What?" Spike asked, craning his neck to try to spot what Drake was looking at. "Oh... Um, it's Fenton's daughter. She's dressed up like that stupid little pop princess, but man, she makes it look good." Drake responded without taking his eyes away from what he was looking at. "I think I'll catch up with ya later," he muttered as he started off through the crowd with a determined look on his face. "Sure thing bro!" Spike called out after him, before mounting up his bike and riding off.

Jazz was trying to make her way out of crowd and think of how to get home at the same time. She wasn't sure how she'd gotten here, but she was reasonably certain her car wasn't there. To top it all off she was totally mortified at what she was wearing. "Hey! Hold on!" a voice called out close behind her. She turned around with a deer-in-the-headlights look to see Drake making his way through to her. When he finally reached her, he cocked his head to one side and pointed a finger at her, as if trying to remember something, "Um... Jazz, right?" She couldn't help but notice that his customary sneer or scowl were gone, and in their place was an expression of intense interest. She blushed under his scrutiny, but managed a "yes". "Ya look kinda lost. You ok?" he asked, still staring intently at her. Jazz's embarrassment and confusion got the better of her. "No... No, I'm not 'ok'," she suddenly ranted, "I have no idea how I got here, I'm pretty sure my car isn't here, so I have no idea how I'm gonna get home, and I can't believe I'm out in public dressed like this!" "Whoa...whoa." Drake held both hands up in front of himself in a 'calm down' manner, "Easy. It'll be ok. Look...one," he held up one finger to accentuate his point, "I think you actually look pretty good dressed like that." Jazz blushed profusely at that, and he grinned at her reaction. "And two," now he held up two fingers, "I tell you what, I'll give you a ride home...If you want." Jazz thought that over for a few moments, then nodded shyly. They walked in awkward silence to Drake's bike, but when they got there, he stopped and stared at his bike in contemplation. "Hmmm. Didn't think of that...she's not really built for two," he muttered, and he was right: with the lack of a rear seat, and a bar that ran over the top of the tank, the Indian was really a bike meant for one. He thought for a moment, then stripped off his jacket, folded it up, and laid it over the bar right in front of the seat. He climbed onto the makeshift seat, and for just an instant, Jazz could have sworn she saw a faint bluish-tinged glow to the jacket, but it was gone before she could blink, so she just figured it was either static electricity, or she was seeing things due to nerves. She gingerly climbed into the seat behind Drake, then he fired up the motor. "Hang on," he remarked over his shoulder. Jazz obliged by wrapping her arms around his waist: the improvised seat was none too stable, then they rode off, back to Fentonworks.


	6. Chapter 5

"That was really the first time he was actually nice to me. After that I still didn't see him very often, but every time I did see him, he always had a smile for me." Jazz paused in her writing and smiled slightly at the memory. "The next time we really ran into each other was during the chaos when the Ghost King attacked." 

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Things had settled into an eerie sense of normalcy... as normal as things could be, considering. If you ignored the creepy green dome overhead and the hordes of ghostly skeletons standing motionless in the streets, it was quite calm. In the absence of a perceived threat, curious teens began sneaking out of the relative safety of their homes. Jazz was one such teen; as much as she protested to the contrary, the whole ghost thing was starting to rub off on her, so she just had to go out and see for herself. She had no idea she was being watched.

Drake and Spike sat together on their motorcycles on a small hill close to Casper High. It was a great vantage point for a lot of the town, and it seemed most of the wandering teens were gravitating toward the school anyway, but Drake was paying particular attention to a certain head of red hair bobbing its way through the crowd. "Yo, why are we out here again?" Spike muttered sourly as he glanced up at the sickly green sky. "Something really bad is going down here, I've got a bad feeling about this." Drake responded, without shifting the focus of his attention. "Yeah, but ya didn't answer my question." Spike continued to sulk, knowing full well that they weren't leaving just yet. Drake grumbled quietly for a moment before finally answering in a low voice, almost like he didn't want to admit it out loud, "I'm keeping an eye on her." He didn't need to say who. Spike nodded.

Spike had gone back to alternating between glancing up at the sky suspiciously and glowering sullenly at his surroundings when he noticed a pair of small black and white clothed figures out in the middle of the football field. He watched them for a few seconds, then jabbed Drake in the ribs with an elbow, "Hey man, check it out," he pointed, "looks like that ghost kid and some other dude dukin' it out down there." Drake reluctantly turned away from watching the crowd of students to look down at the field, just as the tiny black-clad figure grabbed hold of the sword sunk in the field and pulled it out. And then the sky started falling.

Students who were standing around the field also watching the fight suddenly found themselves being pelted from above by glassy bits of stuff falling from the sky. When they began to run for shelter, the skeletons who they had begun to actually ignore, came back to 'life' and started chasing them. Panic reigned. Jazz jumped in surprise when a pair of motorcycles suddenly came roaring up to her, flattening several skeletons in the process. "Jazz!" Drake shouted, his face deadly serious, with just a touch of worry, "I'm gonna take you home, to your parents...where you'll be safe. Spike!" he turned and pointed at his friend, "You take her on your bike. The seat's bigger, she'll be safer with you at speed. I'll run interference. Go!" Not wishing to question serendipity, Jazz ran over and jumped up behind Spike, clutching on for dear life as both bikes tore out, pouring on the speed. They wove through the streets, dodging shards of green 'stuff' that was still falling and avoiding skeletons, or just running them over outright. The terrifying ride seemed to stretch on forever, although Jazz knew it couldn't have been more than a minute or so...she did live relatively close to the school, after all, and at the speeds they were traveling? She knew they were going to be safe when she finally passed through the green glow of the ghost shield, but flinched anyway when Spike let out a whoop of triumph and skidded to a dramatic stop, right in front of the door to her house. Spike turned around with a wide-eyed expression of excitement Jazz had never seen on surly punk's face before, "That was a wicked awesome drive!" he exclaimed, "Right, Drake?" uncertainty replaced elation on Spike's face as he realized his friend wasn't anywhere to be seen, "Drake?" Jazz turned around too, just in time to see Drake's battered old bike roll, riderless and wobbling, into view before loosing all momentum and toppling over. "Drake!" Spike leapt off his bike and started to run back the way they had come from, but was answered by a groan. As Spike got ready to head off in the direction of the groan, Jazz realized she could hear her parents over some sort of PA system; she also realized that although she had just passed through it, the border of the ghost shield was no longer right around the house, but sweeping outwards to encompass a good portion of the city.

Spike didn't get more than a couple of steps before the source of the groan became apparent: Drake, staggered into view, one hand clutching his face and muttering an "ouch" with almost every step. "Geeze! What happened to you, man?" Spike asked. "I, uh..."Drake looked up and realized Jazz was still there, "I think I ran into a skeleton," he finished. Spike peered closely at Drake before responding, "Heh, well, ya hit him so hard, you knocked your contacts out." Drake shot him a frown, "My what?" then blinked, "oh.. right, right. My contacts. Yeah, that hurt, too. Ouch" Jazz looked, and sure enough, Drake's eyes weren't red anymore...she was just about to comment that she liked that color, when Spike choked back a snicker. "He hates his eyes, no one would take him seriously...sissy lavender eyes..." Spike couldn't take it anymore and burst out laughing. Drake glared daggers at his friend with his 'sissy lavender eyes', "Shut up, man." but that did little to stem the flow of rare mirth from Spike. Drake sighed and gave up, and turned to Jazz, "Are you alright?" "Yeah, I..." she started to answer, but was interrupted by her mother, barreling out the door brandishing a bat with the word "Fenton" emblazoned on it, "What are you doing to my daughter!" she demanded. Drake jumped back away from Jazz, hands raised half defensively, half placating, "Whoa! Whoa! Chill. All I did was bring her home safe. She was outside the shield. I'd a thought you'd be happy to have her back safe and sound," he finished with a smirk. Maddie stopped just shy of nailing him upside the head, and they stood trading glares for a moment, before Maddie turned, grabbed Jazz and dragged her back into the house without another word. A few moments later, Maddie came on the PA system again, "For your own safety, please run underneath the Fenton Anti-Ghost shield, where our daughter Jazz will be serving tea and cookies!" she finished brightly, then reached off-screen and dragged an unwilling Jazz into view, "And boys...she's single!" "Mo-o-o-om!"


	7. Chapter 6

_Author's note: so terribly sorry for taking so long since my last update. I went out of town, and kinda lost my momentum._

Danny had just spent the greater part of the last several hours flying to Vlad's last known base of operations; even at 112 per the Colorado Rockies were still quite a trip. Tucker had pointed out that Danni was created by Vlad, and Danni herself had said he was after her, so it didn't take rocket science to figure that finding Vlad might be a good idea. Problem was, he was nowhere to be found. Danny did a recon of the ritzy chalet's upper floor, phasing through walls as he went, and when he found nothing he drifted down into the secret underground laboratory. "Hello?" his voice echoed hollowly; most of the lab was still in a total shambles from his last visit.

"Great," Danny muttered sarcastically, "a whole day wasted on nothing." He got ready to take off and head home, but a blinking light caught the corner of his eye. He decided to check it out, just in case it turned out to be something important. As he floated closer he realized it was an intact cloning chamber that had somehow survived the onslaught of his wail. The control panel of the empty pod blinked urgently: "clone complete." "Oh, this can't be good," said Danny.

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"Hey, I want to thank you for looking for Danny the other night." Jazz said. She hugged her books tight to her chest and stared at her feet to avoid the gaze of who she was talking to. Drake leaned down, trying to look her in the eye. "It's no problem, really. I'm glad to do it… for you," he stated earnestly. Jazz blushed and shifted uncomfortably, "Look, I…um…I have to go. I have stuff to go do…" she trailed off without really finishing her thought, then she turned and rushed off. Drake watched her go in silence, then walked slowly over to where he'd parked. Just as he reached his destination, Spike roared up on his own ride. "Deal's on," he stated simply. Drake nodded absently, "Yeah, I'll meet you there." Spike smirked, but said nothing, and rode off.

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Jazz hurried along the sidewalk, a blush still coloring her cheeks and a goofy half-smile plastered across her face. She knew exactly where she was and how to get home from there, so she allowed herself to get lost in her thoughts, not watching where she was going but gazing down at the strip of concrete under her feet. That was why she didn't notice the veritable wall of metal standing in her path until she walked facefirst into it with a solid clank! Before she could recover, a steely cold hand grabbed her and a deep voice growled, "Prey doesn't have the liberty of daydreaming!" She shrieked in surprise, but recovered her wits quickly. "Let me go!" she cried out as she pulled back hard, trying to break that iron grip. She yelped again as a glowing net popped seemingly out of nowhere and wrapped her up. Skulker hoisted his prize into air and gazed at Jazz with a triumphant sneer, "In time, child. You're just the bait for a larger trap." Skulker extended his wings and activated his jets, calmly ignoring Jazz's futile struggles to escape the net, and rocketed off.

Over the diminishing roar of the ascending rockets another motor's throaty growl could be heard: Drake pulled out of a side alley where he had just watched the tail-end of the exchange in the street. He tore off down the road, a determined look in his angry red eyes, in hot pursuit of the rapidly diminishing metallic ghost and it's quarry.

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Danny had finally arrived home after his long flight to and equally long flight back from Colorado, he was exhausted, but he just had to talk the whole thing out with his friends. "I don't get it! He should have been there!" he ranted, pacing the length of his room in agitation. After a few moments of contemplative silence, Sam finally piped up, "Well, maybe it's not Vlad after all?" "Yeah, maybe it's someone else that hates both you and Danni," Tucker added. The three of them stood in silence for a few seconds, contemplating that, then, "Nahh, it's gotta be Vlad." Sam and Tucker said in unison. Danny nodded in agreement, but finally ceased his pacing and gazed absently around his room. His glance landed on a sheet of paper resting on his normally relatively neat desk. He was pretty sure he hadn't left that sheet there, so he went over to investigate.

Danny picked up the note and read in silence for a few seconds, but then Sam and Tucker jumped startled when he suddenly crushed the note into a crumpled wad in his fist, eyes alight with a hot green glow and an expression of pure rage on his face. "It IS Vlad," he practically snarled, "and this time he's got Jazz…"

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	8. Chapter 7

"Ow! Hey!" Jazz complained as she was unceremoniously dumped from the tight confines of the net into the not-much-better confines of some sort of holding cell. She had no idea where she was; what little she knew was that after a brief stop in her brother's room, where Skulker dropped a single piece of paper on his desk, they had flown straight to one of the multitudinous nondescript warehouses that lined the waterfront. She jumped to her feet and rattled the bars of the walls, trying to find a weak spot, "What do you want from me? Let me out!" "What do I want from you?" Skulker eyed her with a supremely confident smirk, "You are already doing it, child. The trap is baited, my job is done. Now, you wait." With that, he turned and blasted off, flashing intangible just before he reached the roof, leaving Jazz behind…utterly alone. 

Jazz wandered back and forth in her tiny cell, randomly testing the bars for a while, before she finally resigned herself that she wasn't getting out of this without help. Just as she was about to sit down to wait, a smooth voice interrupted her thoughts, "Ahhh, Jasmine. Comfy, are we? Quite cozy in there?" Jazz jumped slightly and turned to see Vlad Plasmius striding purposefully out of the shadows that cloaked the majority of the dim warehouse, cold half-smile on his face and a colorless cube tucked under one arm. He stopped directly in front of Jazz's little cage and leaned in to peer down at her, still grinning sardonically. "Jasmine, my dear…I would have loved you like a daughter, but you betrayed me," he said wistfully. "I would have treated you as my own child, but like any child…" he suddenly stood straight up again, an angry scowl replacing his grin and his voice going as cold and hard as iron, "I can always make another!" With that, he pressed a button hidden somewhere on the surface of the box he carried. The box popped open and folded back upon itself and compacted down to pocket-sized, disgorging its contents on the ground. Jazz gasped in shock at the sight of a young black and grey clad white haired girl sprawled disoriented on her hands and knees on the ground before her. Before the girl had even an instant to react, Vlad struck down on her fast as lightning, snagging her by the neck with one hand and hoisting her struggling form into the air at arms length. "Ahh, Danielle. Here you are back in my hands again, despite all your efforts to elude me. So you see, child…" he paused for a brief moment, suddenly drawing the girl right into his face and glaring down at her, "I AM the boss of you!" he hissed the last few words in barely restrained fury. As suddenly as flipping a light switch, his anger was gone again, and he casually produced some glowing shackles, slapped them on the girl, and dropped her next to Jazz's crate. As Vlad strolled away from the two girls Jazz had a few moments to think, put two and two together, and realized this 'Danielle' just had to be the girl she heard scream from Danny's room. She was just about to quietly ask the girl if she was ok when Vlad turned back around to face them again. He eyed Danielle with an air of almost clinical detachment for a moment, then commented "I would say you would do well to remember that, but I think you needn't worry about that much longer. You are flawed…imperfect…a failure, nothing at all like my good son. Junior?" As he finished his sentence, another figure walked up from out of the shadows and for the briefest instant Jazz felt a dash of hope, but it died as quickly as it had come: the new arrival, although superficially looked like her brother, he wore the same condescending wicked smile as Vlad, and his eyes glowed bright red in the dim light. "Yes, Father?" he responded.


	9. Chapter 8

The burly grey-skinned ghost sat quietly astride his wicked-looking chopper contemplating the warehouse complex at the base of the hill beneath him. His bike looked like nothing so much as some psychedelic drug-induced nightmare: front forks raked back so aggressively it lent a distinct predatory air…flickering flames painted across the tank and fenders were more than simply a trick of the light – they actually danced across the surface in a constant shimmer of shifting colors… and a tiny puff of ghostly-blue flame hovered at the tip of the tailpipe, despite that the motor was shut off. Solid red eyes burned bright in agitation, but he had no idea where his target had disappeared to, so he just sat… calculating his next move.

Several long minutes of indecision dragged by slowly when a fast-moving blur caught his eye. The little black streak stopped mid-air, resolving into the figure of the oh-so-famous "ghost boy". He hovered for a moment, seemingly searching for something, then apparently spotting what he was looking for, he dove down and disappeared into one of the warehouses. The brawny ghost leaned forward with interest, tracing the path the "ghost boy" took and making note of the building he entered. "Huh. I'm not alone…" he muttered to himself, then suddenly sat back hard into the seat with a scowl. "Too bad I hate the little twerp." he finished sourly as he kicked the motor over. It caught and roared to life with an otherworldly growl, and he peeled out down the hill in the direction of the warehouse he'd chosen, scorching the grass in his wake.

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Jazz stared in open-mouthed shock at the duplicate in front of her. Danni struggled back to her hands and knees, drawing Junior's attention. "Hello, little _failure_." he sneered down at her, dragging the last word out conspicuously…punishing her with his voice. She raised her head and locked eyes with him, "Don't listen to Vlad! He's just using you! You're unstable and yer gonna melt away!" she pleaded. He snorted, but Vlad responded first, "Ahhh, you see Danielle, that's where you're wrong. After your little…betrayal… I realized the flaw in my plan. I was relying far too heavily on Fenton DNA, you see." "Silly little 'mistake'…" Junior cut in, "how little you know. I am truly Vlad's son, where you are not any more than a pathetic little failed clone." Vlad glowered briefly at the interruption, but continued smoothly, "Yes, as I was saying…I was relying on gaining Daniel's mid-morph DNA, when the answer was right in front of me the whole time. I used my own DNA to fill in the gaps." He grinned wickedly, showing off gleaming fangs.

Danni gaped up at him as Jazz finally found her voice again, "You really ARE a fruit loop!" Vlad's smile disappeared, but before he could react farther, a resounding slap landed hard on her cheek. "You will NOT speak that way of Father!" Junior glared as he withdrew his hand from between the bars. Vlad smirked briefly, then decided to change the subject. "Enough! If Skulker has done the job I paid him for, Daniel should be arriving any time now…" As if on cue, Danny shot through the ceiling and pulled up short. "Jazz!" he started in concern, then shifted to confusion, "Danni?" His gaze turned to anger as it swept the room and landed on Vlad, but then slid back into confusion at the sight of his doppelganger. "What the…?"

"I'll take care of this, Father." Junior purred, launching himself into the air to meet Danny halfway. So absorbed was everyone in watching the unfolding events, no-one even noticed the other intruder until both Jazz's crate and Danni's shackles popped open in unison, setting off a raucous alarm. "Fudge-nutters! What now?" Vlad spun around angrily, but stopped short at the sight of the unfamiliar ghost. He only paused for a brief instant, then let loose with a magenta blast, firing the grey interloper against the wall. The grey brute hit hard with a grunt and dropped to his knees. "Jazz! uh… clone-girl! run!" he wheezed out. This was not going well.


End file.
